Author's note:

Hey, people, sorry for the delay again. I can't believe how busy I am these days, what with work and prepping for university and doing church stuff. Anyways, my apologies to those who patiently waited! You guys are great for being so supportive. (:

P.S. Detective Vartann is my fav detective on the show (other than Vega; Brass doesn't count) and he has hardly any background to speak of. So I just decided to interject some, along with references to the show here and there - AKA Nick and Cavaliere in Compulsion, Sofia in Mea Culpa, etc.

Cheers. Happy reading!

Sofia Curtis liked her job. Really, she did. But there were the times when she thought it was just the pits.

Grissom had asked her to cover the 420 – the homicide. She had just wrapped her own case, a particularly trying one where the physically handicapped victim had been killed just because he was in a wheelchair. Tired and beat, she'd returned to the station only looking to go home, eat something, and hit the sack.

Then Grissom had materialized in the layout room and all but commanded her to take over his case.

Sofia shook herself mentally and tried to stay positive. It wasn't easy until she remembered what had happened to Greg and Warrick.

The crime scene was a poster child for your typical suburban home. Crime scene tape crisscrossed the lawn and the porch, the latter upon which the victim had been spotted by the paper boy. The sprinkler spray was petering out, the police officers finally having been successful in switching off the sprinkler system.

Detective Vartann was leaning on his Tahoe, the skin of his rugged face stretched much too tightly over his cheekbones, his eyes deep and hollow in their sockets. He looked half dead; certainly, Sofia thought he would be after she'd heard what had gone on down at the Kids' Korner toy store. The sharp-as-tacks detective's eyes were half-lidded, but as Sofia pulled her SUV to a stop, he was up and on his feet, face alert despite the weariness still present there.

"Hey, Sofia."

Sofia smiled in greeting at the detective as she lugged her silver field case out of the passenger seat. "Good to see you, Vartann. What's the gist on the vic?"

Vartann sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "Mark Tower, age 37. Lives with his wife and toddler – both of who were upstairs sleeping. The paper boy found him after tossing the newspaper onto the lawn and seeing blood dripping down from the porch."

"You don't say," Sofia commented, her heart sinking down into her stomach.

She didn't entirely require Vartann's description. From where she stood on the lawn, avoiding the dying drops of the sprinkler, she could see dark red stains that had flowed over the porch steps and down to the garden path. The blood on the path was being steadily diluted and washed away by the sprinkler water.

"What was the deal about the sprinkler?" she queried.

Vartann rolled his eyes. For a second he looked like his old casual, confident self, and not the tired soldier that had replaced him. "The thing was broken. It was stuck; just kept turning on every day and was so difficult to turn off. The Towers were going to have it repaired, but the utilities company just kept blowing them off. Took us ages before we could even find the off switch; even then, they had to actually cut the Towers' water supply to do it. Mrs. Tower consented."

The aforementioned wife was standing out on the sidewalk, holding her little boy in her arms. Disheveled, pale, and clearly in shock or grief, she stood alone, watching the officers race around like ants and weeping without pause. Sofia's heart sank even more.

"You took her statement?" she pressed.

Vartann turned to look at the woman and child. His eyes were bleak. "Yeah, I did." His demeanor turned more businesslike, and he straightened. "Rebecca Tower and little Oliver Tower, ages 33 and 2. Nice age. They were asleep. Rebecca said that it wasn't unusual for Mark to be awake earlier than she was. He would always get up, watch a DVD or check his email and work stuff, and then he would grab the paper to get a read before she did. They didn't have any marital problems, and they've been married for three years."

Sofia sized up the woman. She was quite attractive, for a housewife, with a good-sized bosom and nice hourglass figure.

"I would figure her to at least have a boyfriend on the rocks," she confessed with brutal honesty. "I mean, come on, married for a few years, young kid, maybe she got bored with being an old married housewife and mothering."

Vartann shrugged. "That comment on her looks I understand. Don't ask me about the rest – I only know that every night, I return home to my dog and my fridge full of Chinese and pizza. My cable TV's my other best friend."

"No girlfriend?" Sofia asked, raising an eyebrow. Could've surprised me.

Vartann twitched a sheepish smile."Okay, she's a paramedic. I go home and tell her that I was held back because of a dead body on the tracks. She nods and answers me that she was late because of a gunshot victim and a kid with a severed finger, and dinner's on the table."

"Nice," Sofia remarked enviously. Not everyone is so fortunate to have an other half that understands…

"Uh huh." Vartann kept on smiling for a few more seconds, his mind clearly on his girlfriend. Sofia figured that it wouldn't be long into the future before the little lady saw an engagement ring handed to her. She hid her smirk, but just barely.

Vartann returned to reality. "I'll get phone records et al." He pointed out the coroners to Sofia. "You better clear a path for them, they've been hovering like vultures."

Sofia gave him a mock salute. "On my way, boss."

Vartann ambled off, his long legs making good time as he clambered past the wet grass, avoiding all possible trace and other evidence. Sofia headed over to the porch. Avoiding the blood pools, she tiptoed and maneuvered until she had found a perch solid enough for her to stay. Then she lifted the camera, retrieved the evidence markers and measures from her kit, and got to work.

Okay. The victim's throat had been slashed by a sharp tool, and he'd exsanguinated through his exposed windpipe. He'd clearly been surprised, as there were no defense wounds on his hands, and he was relatively large in stature – roughly six feet. Maybe the killer had snuck up behind him and slit his throat. Sofia did find dandruff in the man's hair, but that was about it. It could even be his, although the few flecks she'd discovered were found only around at the back of his head, near the crown. It was consistent if the killer had murdered Mark Tower from behind. The murder weapon wasn't anywhere to be seen or found.

Once she was done with the body, Sofia waved to the coroners. Then she got to her feet, tucking evidence envelopes and bindles into her vest pockets, and made her way into the house. Vartann on her heels, she walked through the two stories of rooms – kitchen, dining room, living room, master bedroom, kid's room, bathrooms – and found little that could be counted suspicious or relevant to the case.

When she was in the master bedroom, she looked out of the large picture window and saw that the officers were trickling away. The coroners were likely long gone.

"Where are they going?" she questioned, meaning the police officers.

"Big bank robbery in town," Vartann replied wearily. Seeing Sofia's look, he quickly added, "Ecklie told me that he'd get the day shift to handle it! Don't worry. He's probably rousing them all up right now."

Sofia continued looking at him for a few more seconds. Her emotions were mixed, as usual, when references to the day shift or Ecklie came up. She had been the day shift supervisor, before Ecklie had demoted her. It had been likely pure spite on Ecklie's part, directed at Grissom, and Sofia had gotten in the way just because she had the teensiest bit of interest in Grissom. She suspected that it was the reason too why she and Sara chafed so much at times.

"Right," she finally stated dryly.

Poking around some more in the bathroom yielded golden results. Sofia found the wastebasket full of used tissues and old papers. She dug through the heap, glad for her gloves. Vartann suddenly cocked his head, as if he'd heard something.

"What is it?" Sofia questioned, instantly alert.

Vartann continued listening for a few more seconds. His gaze was distant, and his hand went to the revolver holstered at his belt. "I'm sure it's nothing, but I'll check it out. Keep a sharp eye, okay? I'll be back."

"Sure." Sofia wasn't all that bothered. The cops had been swarming the house; surely there wouldn't be anyone who would still be here. She did take Vartann's words to heart, though. It wouldn't be the first time a CSI was exposed to danger, especially now as she recalled when Catherine had grappled with the suspect in a past case.

But that had been a rookie at the scene, not cop powerhouse Vartann, or the four other policemen that had been hanging around the property. Rebecca Tower had gone down to the station to clear up the paperwork and forms for her husband's body, once the autopsy had been conducted.

Sofia rifled through the mess. Then she located a utilities bill – water supply – thrown into the bin underneath a bubble gum wrapper and a paid parking ticket. The name of the utilities guy on the bill was Martin Finch. Sofia allowed her mouth to quirk in a smile as several bird jokes popped into her head, courtesy of spending time with Greg Sanders, and continued to push papers. Several other bills turned up, with the same name logged on each, and the oldest one had a phone number written on it.

The latest bill had a message on it: YOU WANNA GO OUT SOMETIME, DOLL? I'M FREE, NO RESPONSIBILITIES ATTACHED.

Ooh. Motive for murder, anyone?

Sofia packed all the bills into a large plastic evidence bag. She then placed the bag into her field case and emptied the bin onto the bathroom floor to comb for more evidence, finding it in the bloody tissues located not too far down from the hefty stack of utility bills. Jackpot.

It occurred to Sofia, that as she bagged the tissue, several minutes had passed, and she had heard nothing from Vartann at all.

Alex Vartann had had good memories in his life, to displace the bad. His family was a tight-knit one, and he visited his parents back in Laughlin as often as he could. He was a lone wolf and a born bachelor – and so he knew he'd surprised Sofia when he'd mentioned his girlfriend. Amy Watson was everything a cop could want, and they'd actually talked about the future, with no objections from either party.

As he walked stealthily down the stairs, he thought of Amy now. In her own way, she was as much of a detective as he was – only he hunted criminals of the human element; she hunted down criminals of the microscopic type.

He'd been unsure about what he said to Sofia being true. He had heard a slight thump downstairs, although it was possibly nothing. Vartann prided himself on having the sharpest hearing of all the LVPD detectives, and now the hairs rose on his neck as he pulled out his gun and carried it in a two-handed grip.

Time to play hide and seek. Hopefully, he wouldn't be the one who lost.

Peeking around the corner after he'd completely descended the stairs, he scanned both sides of the hallway and then sprang out, wielding the gun. The whisper of sound to his right alerted him, and he whipped around just as the Tazer darts struck him directly in the left shoulder. Instantly he lost all muscle control in the wake of the sharp jolt of pain that flashed through his body. The gun fell from his stiffened hand onto the carpet, the thick wool cushioning the metal, preventing any sound from being heard by Sofia upstairs. Vartann felt his legs give way, and as he dropped, rough hands grabbed him, easing him down to the carpeted floor.

His last thought before the darkness encompassed his consciousness was of his attacker, a shadowy figure all in black, stepping over him and heading for the stairs.